In the interlude between Leonid Brezhnev's death in 1982 and Mikhail Gorbachev's appointment as General Secretary in 1985, history gave two men brief tenure at the head of the Soviet system. One, Konstantin Chernenko, lasted 13 months at the top, and is seldom remembered these days. The other, Yury Andropov, lasted only two months longer, and yet, not only is he still remembered, he remains one of the most openly admired of the Soviet leaders.

Andropov also comes across as perhaps the most paradoxical of the men who led the Soviet Union. His name and life are surrounded by rumor, legend and secrecy-maybe not so surprising given that he headed the KGB for 15 years.

Andropov's rise to power has inspired everything from serious historical studies to detective stories. Last week, to mark the anniversary of Andropov's June 15, 1914, birth, two Russian TV stations screened documentaries seeking to unravel the riddle of the man and his legacy.

It may seem paradoxical that Andropov is still the subject of such attention. Andropov was 68 and seriously ill when he finally became General Secretary and for almost half this brief period he ruled the country from a hospital bed. Meanwhile, the Soviet propaganda machine spun into action, creating a soothing illusion of health and activity for the general public. A classic example of Soviet decline it would seem. And, perhaps, a rehearsal for the parody of Chernenko's sickly reign that was to follow.

But whereas Chernenko represents the tragedy of a weak and greedy individual, ready to sacrifice the last of his health for the sake of a hastily snatched breath of power, Andropov represents a deeper tragedy. It is that of an intelligent and idealistic, though misguided man, and the system he served and tried to save.

That Andropov did hold the reins of power for such a short time is probably one of the explanations for the ongoing interest in him.

People ask themselves whether Andropov, the man who brought Gorbachev to the top, could not have been a reformer himself if he'd had more time. Perhaps a more cautious and gradual-and by implication more successful-reformer than his young protege. But Andropov's death cut short all possiblity of knowing what might have been, allowing myth and speculation to flourish.

This is reminiscent of the posthumous culture surrounding Lenin. The first Soviet leader, having wreaked havoc on the country with revolution and civil war, then introduced the New Economic Policy, bringing relative stability and prosperity to society. It was in the middle of this transformation that he died, with many later saying that had he lived, much in Soviet society would have been done differently and done better.

Andropov was unable to do much in the time allotted him. These days, he is most commonly associated with the seemingly contradictory measures of putting cheap vodka in the shops and clamping down on discipline in the workplace. Whatever Andropov's part in these particular measures, there is something of a carrot and stick approach to be seen in them- given that as well as enjoying a tipple, many welcomed the promise of order and discipline. These ideals have a nostalgic appeal to this day, as illustrated by national-patriot slogans and rhetoric.

Traditionally, running the KGB was a dead end job, because no one wanted a secret police chief running the country.

Andropov was the longest serving KGB chairman. By Soviet standards, he was humane, deporting Alexander Solzhenitsyn from the country and exiling Andrei Sakharov to Gorky, instead of packing them off to labor camps. But he also set up the fifth 'ideological' directorate of the KGB and sanctioned the abuse of psychiatry.

There was a certain apprehension at the idea of this man, with the KGB behind him, at the summit of power. But at the same time, Andropov had a reputation as a fighter of corruption and a genuinely honest man.

Some these days like to compare Leonid Brezhnev and Boris Yeltsin for their apparent senility. But the late Brezhnev and Yeltsin eras also closely resemble each other in their use of compromising material to create scandals in the upper echelons of power and the entrenched corruption that pervades society.

Famous scandals of the time, such as the 'diamond' scandal, involving Galina Brezhneva, Brezhnev's daughter, and other key figures in the Brezhnev 'clan' did a lot to boost Andropov's popularity. In discrediting Brezhnev and weakening his power base, Andropov was at once 'just doing his job' as KGB chief, but at the same time preparing the ground for his own leap to the top.

Andropov's popularity becomes more comprehensible when seen against this background of endemic corruption. Andropov came across as tough but fair, holding everyone accountable, be they absenteeworkers or top officials caught dipping their hands into the state coffers.

Perhaps fewer people would have expressed a liking for Andropov in 1989 or 1990 when human rights and freedom were the rallying cries in Soviet society. But now, in a time when laws are openly flouted and corruption has spread like gangrene, Andropov has re-emerged to capture people's imagination with what might have been, or what might yet be done.

The question remains, could Andropov have been a reformer? He had little formal education but plenty of natural intelligence. Running the KGB gave Andropov access to a vast amount of information on the real situation in the Soviet Union, and he was perhaps the best placed among top Soviet officials of the day to launch reforms.

But all the intelligence and information in the world will not help someone whose mind has been shaped by dogma, sealing it off from questioning. Andropov's formative experiences as a politician were the Stalin years, with their arrests and denunciations, and the 1956 Hungarian uprising, which took place while he was Soviet ambassador in Budapest. Violence, betrayal and harshness were the backdrop for his rise to power.

He could not simply shake off his past, nor blithely abandon his beliefs in the name of change. That his Marxism-Leninism was seemingly sincere makes it all the more unlikely he could have been a reformer. Andropov realized the need for change, but his remedies were limited to the stock answers of the past-discipline, order, a firm hand. Going further would have meant questioning the foundation upon which his life was built, a painful experience for any man, let alone one aged 68.

This is Andropov's tragedy. He had ambition, energy and intelligence, but he placed it in the service of a flawed ideology and became a prisoner of Leninist postulates that only held the country back.